“We are the champions”:programming world champions from Russia.

Why and what for?Pavel Mavrin, Fedor Tsarev, Maxim Buzdalov

St. Petersburg National Research University of IT, Mechanics and Optics

Computer Technologies Department

European Conference of Young Presidents Organization (http://www.ypo.org/)

Moscow, 22.09.2012, Ritz-Carlton Hotel

Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC)

• Since 1979, sponsored by IBM• Became world championship in early 90-s• Team = 3 students + 1 computer• Over 10000 teams – 2200 universities – 85 countries• Multi-tiered competition:– 260 Quarterfinals– 30 Semifinals– World Finals (112 teams)

• Medals are given to top 12 teams – 4 gold medals, 4 silver medals and 4 bronze medals

• 5 semifinals and 2 finals per student at most• World Finals 2013 will be hosted by University ITMO

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Problem Example• Contest lasts for 5

hours• Problem set: 10-12

problems• Problem “Coffee

Central” from ACM ICPC World Finals 2011

• Coffee shops are located at some of the intersections 3

Problem Example• A person is willing to

walk at most d blocks for the morning coffee

• Example: d = 2• Write the program to

find the location from which you can reach the maximal number of coffee shops for the morning coffee

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Problem Example• Solution for the

example – from best location you can reach 3 coffee shops

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Russian teams on World Finals

• World champions:– 2000 – St Petersburg SU– 2001 – St Petersburg SU– 2004 – University ITMO – 2006 – Saratov SU– 2008 – University ITMO– 2009 – University ITMO– 2012 – University ITMO

• Much more gold medals

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2004, Prague, Czech Republic

• University ITMO – 1-st place• MIT – 5-th place• Caltech – 7-th place• Harvard – 9-th place

2004 World Champions

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World champions 2004 and President of Russia Vladimir Putin

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2008, Banff, Canada• University ITMO – 1-st

place• MIT – 2-nd place• Tsinghua (China) – 6-th

place• Stanford – 7-th place• All 11 Russian teams are

among top 30 teams of the world

World champions 2008 and St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko

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2009, Stockholm, Sweden

• University ITMO – 1-st place

• Tsinghua – 2-nd place• Oxford – 5-th place• MIT – 7-th place• Carnegie Mellon – 8-th

place

World Champions 2009

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World Champions 2009 with President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev

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2012, Warsaw, Poland• University ITMO – 1-st

place• Harvard – 7-th place• University of Tokyo –

11-th place

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World Champions 2012

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World Champions 2012 and President of Russia Vladimir Putin

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Why University ITMO is four times World Champion?

• Computer Technologies Department was founded by Vladimir Vasiliev (now – rector) and Vladimir Parfenov (now – dean of the IT & Programming faculty) in 1991

• Goal:– To find high school students performing best in

mathematics, physics and informatics– To train them to be high-class software engineers

• Competition-based education• Best coach in the world – Andrew Stankevich• Traditions 18

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Secrets of Success

• Pavel Mavrin – don’t stop when you lose• Fedor Tsarev – find a good team• Maxim Buzdalov – do not rest on laurels

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What happens after?

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How business helps our department• Best students are invited to work in the

university after graduating– Save the intellectual environment and traditions– Teach students– Do research

• IT companies sponsor them directly– Save The Best initiative: savethebest.ru

• Mail.Ru Group, Yandex, Yota, Transas, JetBrains, Speech Technology Center, eVelopers, DEVINO Telecom

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Cooperation with ETH Zurich• ETH Zurich:– 21 Nobel Prizes– Never advanced to ACM ICPC World Finals before 2011

• University ITMO:– Participates in ACM ICPC World Finals since 1995– Four times ACM ICPC World Champions

• World Champions from University ITMO regularly come to ETH Zurich for trainings

• Result – ETH Zurich team advanced to World Finals for the first time in the history

• Establishment of Software Engineering and Verification Chair in University ITMO (head – Prof. Bertrand Meyer)

• Davos Informatics camps for high-school students23

Plans for the future• Personal careers – a lot of opportunities • For the university – Gennady Korotkevich,

programming prodigy from Belarus– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Korotkevich– 5 gold medals at International Olympiad in Informatics for

high-school students, 3 absolute first places– Highest rated coder at Codeforces and TopCoder– Now – first-year student of University ITMO– Hope to win two more World Championships

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Contact information:pavel.mavrin@gmail.comfedor.tsarev@gmail.commbuzdalov@gmail.com

St. Petersburg National Research University of IT, Mechanics and Optics

Computer Technologies DepartmentRussia, St. Petersburg, Kronverksky pr. 49

Questions?

Training for ACM ICPC in University ITMO

• http://neerc.ifmo.ru/trains• Coach – Andrew Stankevich

– President of Russia Award in the area of education (2003),

– Award for Great Contribution to Spreading ACM ICPC in Europe (2004)

– Best Coach Award (2009)• Five hour trainings two times a week• About 70% of first and second year

students of Computer Technologies Department take part in trainings

• Special training camps in winter and summer in Petrozavodsk

Russian Olympiads in Informatics for high-school students

• All-Russia center for Olympiads in Informatics at Computer Technologies Department

• Individual Olympiad (ROI, IOI-style, since 1989) • Team Olympiad (ICPC-style, http://neerc.ifmo.ru/school, since 2000)• Internet Olympiads (http://neerc.ifmo.ru/school/io):

– Team (ICPC-style, since 2005)• Basic level• Advanced level

– Individual (IOI-style)• Basic level (since 2009)• Advanced level (since 2006)

– CD “Programming with champions!” (yet – only in Russian)• Basic level of Internet Olympiads• 50 problems with solutions• Personal testing system

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Research at Computer Technologies Department

• Bioinformatics– Algorithms for analyzing large amounts of

genomic data– Genome assembly algorithms– Spin-off company “Cloud Genomics”

• Software Engineering– Software verification– Automated programming using artificial

intelligence and machine learning

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